1. Field
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to fixed and mobile devices, and more particularly to methods, apparatuses and articles of manufacture for use by one or more electronic devices to enable or assist broadcast and relaying of information between two or more mobile devices.
2. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various telecommunication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, and broadcast. Typical wireless communication systems may employ multiple-access technologies capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access technologies include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems, and time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems.
These multiple access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide common protocols that enable different wireless devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, and even global level. An example of an emerging telecommunication standard is Long Term Evolution (LTE). LTE is a set of enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) mobile standard promulgated by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). It is designed to better support mobile broadband Internet access by improving spectral efficiency, lowering costs, improving services, making use of new spectrum, and better integrating with other open standards using OFDMA on the downlink (DL), SC-FDMA on the uplink (UL), and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology. However, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, there exists a need for further improvements in LTE technology. Examples of such improvements including supporting efficient transfer of information between mobile terminals in the absence of network support, determining when two or more mobile terminals may be in proximity to one another and enabling services (including transfer of information between terminals) that are conditional on terminals being in proximity to one another. Preferably, these improvements should be applicable to other multi-access technologies and the telecommunication standards that employ these technologies.